Centella

• Authority

  Britton, Nathaniel L. & Millspaugh, Charles F. 1920. The Bahama Flora.

• Family

  Apiaceae

• Scientific Name

  Centella

• Description

  Description - Perennial herbs (some African species shrubby), ours with prostrate stems rooting and sending up tufts of petioled leaves at the nodes, together with 1-3 long-rayed umbellets of small white flowers, the true umbel sessile. Petiole bases sheathing. Bracts of the involucels 2-4, mostly prominent. Calyx-teeth none. Disk flat, or slightly concave. Styles filiform. Fruit somewhat flattened laterally, rather prominently ribbed, the ribs mostly anastomosing; oil tubes none. [Latin, diminutive of centrum, a prickle.] About 20 species, of wide distribution, abundant in South Africa. Type species: Centella villosa L.